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Minorities commission seeks investigative powers
NCM drops it demand for a constitutional status
PTI | New Delhi | January 27 2012
After battling for several years for a constitutional status, the National Commission for Minorities has now dropped the demand but seeks powers to investigate on the lines of National Human Rights Commission.
The Commission has now dropped its demand for constitutional status in lieu of strengthening weaknesses in the existing NCM Act, chairperson of NCM Wajahat Habibullah told PTI.
"We have dropped the demand for constitutional status in exchange for strengthening the law itself. Simply constitutional status with the same law will not make any difference at all," Habibullah said.
He said there is a whole infrastructure in India including judicial and administrative and the job of the NCM is to get only these institutions to work.
"NCM can't start replacing them. There is a national structure that has to work. Minorities are protected by law." he said.
The NCM chief at the same time accepted that there are certain weakneesses in the NCM Act and that it does not have enough investigative powers.
"What we have asked for is that the investigative powers conferred upon NHRC should also be given to NCM," he said.
Habibullah said NCM apprised the ministry of its demands two-three months ago but it is yet to get a response.
"That is under consideration of ministry. I believe they are considering it," he said.
The demand for a constitutional status was sought by NCM soon after it came under a separate ministry for minority affairs, which came into being in the UPA-I government.
NCM had submitted a draft in this regard to the ministry in 2006, when A R Antulay was the Minority Affairs Minister in UPA government.
In 2007, a meeting of the Union Cabinet chaired by prime minister Manmohan Singh gave its approval to move the Constitution (103rd Amendment) Bill 2004 to grant the constitutional status to the NCM.
However, the bill could not be brought before Parliament since then despite repeated attempts by the Commission.
In 2009, the issue had led to a fierce exchange of correspondence between the NCM as the Minority Affairs ministry questioned the rationale behind the NCM demand while its then Chairman Md Shafi Qureshi made a strong pitch for grant of the same to the panel.
The NCM's argument then was that it did not have punitive powers as the National Commission for Scheduled Castes (NCSC) and hence can do very little if the parties it summons for inquiry refuse to turn up.
The argument was that the Constitutional status will help us start legal action against those who defy NCM's summons.
The Commission's draft report for the bill had then sought constitutional status for the NCM as well as the power of summoning.
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